Test Subject 123
by MiniCinnamon99
Summary: A genetic experiment was all she was meant to be. Can Clint help her become something more or will Natasha hold the key to success instead? Meet Тема один Два-Три (Tema Odin Dva-Tri) or more specifically...Test Subject 123. Rating recently changed for complaints about language. Rated T for minimal swearing.


_**Please read this or the story won't make much sense!**_

Well it's MiniCinnamon99 here and I've come up with another whirlwind idea! Now I know this story won't make much sense but it isn't supposed to. The writing of it symbolizes how much of the main character's life doesn't make any sense either. read it slowly if have to or maybe go over it a few times but once you understand it I hope you love it! Don't ask why I make it so difficult for my readers to follow. It isn't on purpose I swear, I'm just a bad writer! Just this one is on purpose and if you want to critique go right ahead! Voila! Another confusing mess is born!

* * *

_**Test Subject 123**_

* * *

Clint sighed. He hated informants that were late, especially when he was in enemy territory. The current situation was less than favourable. He was sitting in a terrorist compound that was crawling with civilians and terrorists alike. Somehow the civilians weren't bothered by the scum milling around with them, they just went on like it was their normal everyday life.

Sadly, it probably was.

"Psst!" he swung his head to look behind him. A girl, and she was just that, crouched on the roof behind him, behind an air vent like him.

He looked down at the terrorists before looking at her again.

"You the informant?"

She shook her head and looked around frantically.

"I was the drop unit leader for the informant. He was eighty-sixed and I barely made it out. These damn people and their guns," she spat and slammed her hand into the ground.

She looked like she regretted that though because she cradled her hand closely after that and muttered oaths in soft Russian.

Clint was concerned for her, only because she seemed to be younger than Natasha when he saved her.

Looking closer at her she had a striking resemblance to Nat. She had soft porcelain skin with the small button nose. Her firm jaw and her soft lilt that was barely heard anymore. She had Nat's stature and build along with her curly, wavy hair. However on closer inspection she had brown hair instead of fiery red, her eyes weren't brilliant green but plain grey-brown, and she had more than one injury.

Her head had blood coming from it at the temple, all of her weight was balanced on her left leg and her right knee looked swollen. Her hand was an apparent injury, although he couldn't immediately see why. She had blood coming from a few places on her body but even his sharp eyes couldn't see where it originated from under her armour. Her face had been terribly bruised on the side that she had previously hidden in the shadows.

Then there were her weapons. He could count an immediate 18 inconspicuous bulges where she had hidden knives and other various objects, not to mention the ones she had probably already used to defend herself.

He saw loops on her shoulders that were meant to hold a gun strap steady for hiking and running. So she had, had either twin autos or semi autos. Her hand guns strapped to her thighs were a simple 9mm.

The way she held herself screamed exhaustion and he was just going to ask her why when bombs started to go off around the compound.

"Time to go!" she screamed and grabbed his arm before sprinting to the edge of the roof. He tried to protest her jumping off of the edge but she went anyway. They both landed quite harshly on the roof a vehicle.

She was up and jumping off while Clint was still trying to figure out why he couldn't breathe so she pulled him along and got him stumbling after her.

"Come on, if I'm saving your sorry ass at least tell me where your pick up vehicle is!" She demanded desperately, "I can't drag your butt too far, I'm too tired for this!"

And she wasn't lying. She was so exhausted that she was getting light headed and was seeing spots.

Clint gave a weak cough and mumbled something. She glanced back at him and saw his head was bleeding from a few different places.

"Aww, great I killed you!" She groaned.

A few gun shots went off behind her and her new liability (as if she didn't have enough of those) so she ducked behind a car and decided to use the cover and time to frisk him for a comm device.

She found one, conveniently in his ear.

Thankful that she didn't have to carry one in her hand she shoved it in her ear, shot a few bullets in the direction she had just come and took off again with her new charge in tow.

"Hello?" she said loudly. No one answered.

"Perfect, just perfect," she muttered and flung the Agent behind a wall as she heard more shots. She covered him and then reached around him to return fire. "I'm saving you're Agents ass and you can't even get us out of here!" Growling into the comm was frustrating as hell but she guessed she wasn't talking to a silent communicator.

She was proved right on her third volley of shots when a voice answered.

"Please repeat your situation."

She growled.

"Your Agents informant was killed as we were attacked inside the compound! I was the informant's drop unit leader! WE WERE FUCKING FOUND OUT AND SHOT AT! After I barely escaped with my life, I met up with Agent Dumbass here to warn him but the explosives I set off went off too early and alerted everyone to our presence. I got him out of the blow zone but he gave himself a nasty head injury in the process! Now I'm dragging a fucking brain dead Agent around here, just waiting to get my ass blown off! Are you gonna come get us or not?"

"Leave our Agent at a checkpoint and get yourself out. We are not liable for you and you will not be extracted with us."

"WHAT? Your Agent's saviour and I get left behind! Fuck this. I'll get your Agent out my way, wait 'til he wakes up so he knows that he owes me and then turn him over to you freaks!"

She ripped the earpiece out and put in a pocket of her jumpsuit before pulling the Agent up and kicking him into action.

She had to find them a way out and fast.

And there, waiting right over the fence of the compound was her answer. A beautiful Jeep that was tricked out. From where she was crouched, behind some crates, she could see all of the computers and the guns on it. Perfect. Now just to get over the fence without getting shot.

"Well Dumbass I hope you can still climb," she muttered looking him in the eye.

He nodded. Well that surprised her. She didn't think he was responsive from his lack of speech and coordination.

"Well why are you so quiet?" she looked at him and something screamed an answer at her.

"You can't hear half of what I'm saying can you?"

He smirked sadly and shook his head. She gave him a sad half smile and prodded at him to get him moving.

She pointed at the Jeep and he nodded. She then held up her fisted hand, putting up one finger, then two, then three…

They were running and she was giving them cover fire.

Reaching the fence was easy and she knocked over a tall stack of crates to use as cover while Agent Dumbass climbed over.

"I hope someone's smiling down on me today," she growled and glanced back to see how far up Clint was. He was at the top. Once he fell over the top and hit the ground on the other side she went up as well. She hit the ground as he was picking himself up.

She hauled him up the rest of the way and was dusting him off when more shots went off. She tackled him into the Jeep and covered his head. When the shots died off to reload, she turned over and shot her handgun back at them.

As she was shooting she got herself situated in the driver's seat, still holding Clint down. She turned the key (that was conveniently in the vehicle) and the Jeep roared to life. With a purring Jeep she squealed the tires and took off, leaving one more nightmare in her wake with one extra person. Her life never stopped being interesting.

Driving peacefully in the desert was a figment of the imagination that she could not believe she had been stupid enough to dream up!

She had just needed to get to Cairo to get a flight home but no! She was attacked in the wide open, fucking barren, desert and the only thing between herself and death was her very skilled driving maneuvers.

Clint was busy praying for his life or screaming or shouting directions but she never once listened to him, so he gave up and started firing exploding arrows at the people with the grenade launchers.

At one point she rolled the jeep on purpose so that two enemy cars would crash into each other. Maybe not the safest thing to do or the best for either of their head injuries, but it was damn effective. Especially when it crashed the five cars trying to box them in instead of just the two she was aiming for!

By some miracle the Jeep had landed upright and they had been able to continue on, but now fucking SHIELD was on their tail!

"Barton take the damn earpiece and call them off!"

"Why should I? They can help us!"

"No Barton, they can help YOU!"

She really hated that he had regained his hearing and speaking abilities. I mean sure she learned his name and Agency but he was damn annoying!

"What are you talking about?"

"I made it clear to you that they want me dead! I even replayed the conversation for you! They only want their asset back, they could give a damn about me! As soon as they get their hands on me I'm dead! That's something I spent twelve years of my life trying to avoid! I clawed my way to the top and I'm not giving it all away for these clowns if I haven't thrown it away myself to escape the hellish things I've had to do!"

She knew she had given him a lot of ammo to throw back at her and even have her imprisoned or kill her right on the spot but truthfully, if this was now her life, she wasn't sure she wanted it anymore.

Despite being handed the best hand he's ever gotten on a silver platter, he calmly observed her trying to work out exactly how old she was.

"How old are you?"

She swerved around some stop strips that had been thrown from the helicopter above and in front of them before answering.

"I'm…fifteen."

Clint felt the bile rising in his throat. Stories that started out this way (like Natasha's) never worked out very well.

"If you you've been recruited since you were three then you're quite old to still have as many emotions as you do."

She froze in horror at what he had just said. Everything around her blurred out and became the dark surroundings of the examination room. The doctors standing around her, her small frame strapped to the table, her lungs screaming out Natalia's name. She just wanted her 'big sister' to come back, she just wanted to be safe, she just wanted to have a home!

"Hello!" Clint screamed again. She shook her head and refocused on slowing down and swerving in the opposite direction, confusing the SHIELD helicopter.

"Yeah," she answered, "I much too old to still be human after what those monsters did too me but I was chemically engineered to be human. Too human. And then I was expected to relive all of…Just forget it," she snapped finally.

Clint wisely kept his mouth shut but turned and fired a warning shot with his bow at the helicopter. She looked at him in shock but smiled so warmly he thought she might burst into flames.

"Thanks Clint," it was so quiet he barely heard it but he knew she had said it. He didn't know how he knew she had said it but he had a gut feeling.

Scrambling out of the jeep and into one of the seedier hotels in the city without being noticed, went on without a hitch. No one saw, not even the 'concierge', and finding an empty room hadn't been hard.

She had cleaned up and went out and got them two airplane tickets in German names. They were tourists headed for the Amazon. That's where her next target was anyway and Barton was coming along.

Now that she was opening the room she knew that her exhaustion would catch up with her. She knew it, and she could feel it come crashing down on her hard.

As soon as she opened the door, she stumbled in and hit the floor face first.

"Cutey, that you?" Since she refused to tell him her name, even after she had gotten his, he called her Cutey. It was just one more annoying fact that she couldn't hate him for.

"Help," she groaned from the floor. He came almost sprinting around the corner, armed to the teeth with no shirt on.

Seeing her he quickly put all of his weapons down and closed the door before kneeling beside her. He slowly rolled her over and saw her dry lips for the first time, and her unruly hair that still hadn't been combed. It was messy and tangled curly waves that fell to her shoulders despite her having all of the brown lusciousness in a ponytail.

Her hip bones were protruding but she still had some meat around her stomach. Not enough though, so she wasn't eating properly. No surprise that she had just dropped with those bags under her eyes. She looked utterly exhausted and there was no ounce of energy left.

"Well Cutey, looks like you've been on the go for a while. I tell you what, once we get you some food and water we'll get you to sleep."

"No!" she shouted as loudly as her weakened state would allow.

"No to what? No to food? That doesn't make any sense! No to water? Well that's just plain stupid! No to rest? As in no to SLEEP? Well…"

He looked her up and down, seeing several scars that he didn't want to know about and winced, "Maybe that one can be justified."

She just whimpered and shook her head.

Clint sighed, "Well fine. Would you object to taking a bath?"

She didn't respond so Clint sighed again and picked her up. This bath, along with his dizziness and her exhaustion was going to be interesting indeed.

A bath and an emotional breakdown later Clint had his little Cutey wrapped in a towel and sitting in his lap. She had started to freak out as he laid her down to rinse her hair. He got the feeling it was him towering over her that had scared her and that the tub was really full so that he didn't have to lay her back as far and then haul up dead weight.

It was okay now though. He had gotten her quieted down and was now rocking her shivering and whimpering form in his arms.

He had located all of her wounds that were bleeding before and thankfully none were still bleeding, nor were they too serious. She seemed relatively okay except for the starvation, dehydration, and exhaustion.

Sighing he got her dressed and tucked up in the dingy sheets. He found some rations of food and water in his bag and force fed her until he was satisfied, then he gave her some of SHIELD's famous 'mineral gel' to try and get her immune system back on track along with upping her general vitamin intake.

Once that was done he found a comb and sat up against the wall behind her. She didn't protest but she shrunk away from him a bit. Despite this he grabbed her head and placed it in his lab, fanning her hair out so that he could brush it.

As he ran the comb through her wild hair she started to drift off but he could tell she was fighting sleep.

"Go to sleep Cutey. Nothing will hurt you with me here."

Whether she believed him or her exhaustion won out, she finally fell asleep.

Clint smiled and finished brushing her hair before climbing under the sheets of the same bed. He was tired and there was only one bed (and he REALLY didn't want to sleep on the floor) and he didn't think she'd mind.

However just as he was finally allowing sleep to overcome him he was hit in the back of the head. His foggy mind reacted and he jumped out of bed, ready to fight. However the only threat in the room was the thrashing young girl on the bed, obviously in the vice-like grip of a nightmare.

He…really didn't want to wake her up and have to comfort her. It was awkward enough the first time. But that was what he did. He cared too much and it got him into trouble.

Sighing Clint gently shook her awake only to have her jump up and scream.

He grabbed her around the waist and dragged her back to the safety of his embrace. He pinned her against his chest and spoke to her sternly.

"Calm down Cutey, you're alright. I've got you but you need to calm down."

Her thrashing and screams slowly quieted as she processed what he had said to her. She looked around as if seeing the room for the first time.

Then she started trembling like a leaf.

"Put me down?" she asked more than commanded in a shaky voice.

Clit reluctantly let her go and she took off like a shot to the other side of the room as far away from him as she could get.

He just watched her, prepared to spring into action if the situation should arise.

She sat down, her back against the wall, trying to get a grip back on reality.

Clint was struck with how she looked so much like Natasha after a nightmare, but he also noticed the stark contrast of the two. She had much more emotion than Nat would ever show unaware. Once Nat had a grip on herself she would slowly come undone just enough for him to fix her inside then go back to being a stone wall. This one…her emotions were everywhere and she could never close her face off enough to convince him. Anyone who couldn't read the Natasha he knew would've believed this mini version's face but for anyone (like him) who could read Tasha as well as she could read anyone else…it was easy to spot.

"Natalia."

His head snapped back to reality at the sound of her rough voice. Her Russian accent had come back with a vengeance after her screaming.

"What?"

She took a deep breath and released it before continuing.

"My name…is Natalia Romanova. I got the feeling you know the real Nat by the way you're always staring at me. She was…part of the Red Room. She was their best asset and they tried everything to get her back, but she was too good, and too far gone from their control to be what they wanted her to. That's where I come in. Fifteen years ago, two years after her first failed mission, I was engineered from her DNA. I'm not even my own person, just a copy of her. Of course the copy could never be as good as the real thing so I was made for a different purpose than to try and become her. I was engineered to be a test subject. Anything they wanted to do to her, they would do it to me first, to see how she would react and prepare accordingly. After her first act out they had to be prepared for anything. But they had to be prepared for the worst so my brain was experimented on until they could amplify my emotions times forty. Then they would do whatever they wanted to me and sit back to enjoy the show."

She swallowed and closed her eyes before continuing.

"After Nat left she had…tried to help me. She had gotten wind of what I was and how I came to be…what I was for…She wanted to put me out of my misery. I begged her to once she had found me but…then they shot her. She got away but she never finished the job. They tried anything possible to get her back. Altering her memory from afar, drugging her, killing her, trapping her, seducing her…everything they thought of was tried on me and when none of it worked on either of us they gave up. I was no longer needed so they tried to dispose of me. It took me a year to get off of their radar but I managed it, and got on SHIELD's instead. Not much of a change because they'll kill me anyway."

Clint was…stunned, horrified, terrified, sick to his stomach, beyond pissed, and dizzy all at the same time.

"But, if SHIELD gave Nat a chance why not you?"

"Weren't you listening? All of my emotions are amplified, which means I overreact and react dangerously to any given situation. I'd be the worst Agent in history and that means I'm dead weight. In case you've forgotten, SHIELD doesn't take in dead weight. You know for a fact that if Nat hadn't been so damn good no one in your Agency would've thought twice about shooting her."

"So what is your name?"

"I told you…"

"No," Clint interrupted, "You told me her name. You told me the Red Room weapon's name. That's it. Natasha isn't her anymore and neither are you. All three of you are different people and you all deserve your own name. So pick one."

She looked at him strangely, "I'm not a person, I'm just an experiment gone horribly wrong. I don't deserve a name but I have to be called something so it was either her name or project X or even Test Subject 123."

"But you are a person. You've become a lot more than what they wanted you to be so you do deserve a name. It can't be that hard to choose one. Nat did it no problem."

"Тема один Два-Три." Clint went over the translation for her new name in his head. _Tema Odin Dva-Tri_…_It's Test subject One Two-Three._

Despite their abnormal circumstances and their bizarre heart to heart, they managed to keep their cool in the airport and on the plane. However landing in South America, they met a certain fiery red head that had been waiting for them.

They had grabbed what little luggage they had with them and hadn't even spotted her until she had handcuffs on Tema and an arm linked through Clint's. Both tensed but for different reasons. Clint was so happy to see her and was fighting the urge to hug her, while Tema was desperately trying to find a way to escape this.

Clint seemed to sense her discomfort and whispered, "The handcuffs were a bit much Tasha."

Natasha and Tema both looked at him like he had another head. It was the exact same look from both of them and the bizarre nature of the situation hit him full force.

"Clint she kidnapped you. Why wouldn't the cuffs be necessary?"

"Because she never kidnapped me and she's fifteen. In fact she saved my life Nat, just like you did that day. That's how I know I can trust her. Plus she's a genetic copy of you so I trust her by default since she is really you."

Natasha's head snapped to look at Tema. Tema smiled coldly.

"Hello again Natalia, I trust you remember me, Test Subject 123?"

"Tema…" Natasha whispered, "How did you get here?"

"You mean how am I alive? Well that is a long nightmarish story that I'm sure you don't have time to hear. We do have my execution to get to after all."

Nat and Clint both stopped walking at the same time.

"Tema, they won't execute you," Clint tried to reassure her but Tasha shook her head.

"That's just it Clint. They want to execute her already for what she did to you and now that they know she'll just be dead weight…her fate has been sealed since I hit the ground this morning Clint."

"Nat," Tema's shaky voice interrupted her thoughts of escaping, "You could do it before, and you can do it again. I tried to escape, we struggled, you had to use force, I rounded on you and Clint had to put me away. I'm sure it's happened like that before. With Clint's protective nature I'm absolutely positive it's happened before! It wouldn't be hard Nat just do it!"

"Tema…"

"Don't Nat. Don't give me a name like I belong! I'm just a copy of you! Before those monsters got a hold of you, you were a living breathing person. I'm just chemicals! I'm not anything important, I won't have anyone to miss me! I'm just a copy of you with only your nightmares to haunt me, none of my own. I don't know what it's like to take my own breath or walk my own first step because I'm just you. I'm not my own person that can have a happy life or a life of making up for my mistakes. You're on your way Nat, you can become a person again, but I never was! I'm Test Subject 123 and I always will be! You have Clint and an Agency that will stand behind you. I've read about the Avengers too! You have family again Nat, but I'M the one stuck living your old life! I'm still Natalia and you swore to yourself she'd never roam free again! Kill me and she won't! Kill me and your past will be gone for forever!"

Natasha had been getting angrier with every word she said, knowing it was true. It was truly better with her gone and she knew Tema wanted death so bad…As Tema finished, Natasha, shaking with anger and grief and shock and pain pulled a knife out of nowhere and stabbed it as far as it would go into Tema's stomach. Tema shaking with all of the same rage, shock, grief, and pain, suddenly stilled and gaped at Natasha in even more shock. Both of them stared down at the knife while Clint stood by, frozen stiff.

As if they were the same being both girls looked up at each other and slowly closed their mouths. They had a meaningful conversation with their eyes and then both of them started to smile. They locked intense stares and their smiles grew wider and more genuine. Clint was seriously considering getting a physiological test to see if he was still fit for field work.

Then both girls let their eyes flutter closed and Natasha yanked out the knife. As she did so, Tema fell into her arms and they gave each other a bone crushing hug before Tema slipped away. He heard Nat sob softly only once and then she laid Tema on the ground.

Looking like she was sleeping, it seemed a shame to leave the Angel there. She deserved better than that after everything she had done for Nat and now for Clint. She was so much more than an experiment gone wrong but no one had been able to convince her of that. She was better off this way but that didn't mean that Clint and his fiery red head wouldn't miss her (although they denied it with every fiber of their being).

No she definitely deserved better than lying here on the ground, waiting to be found and burned because no one would claim her.

Clint mournfully picked her up and asked Nat to dig his earpiece out of her jump suit pocket.

She did and put it on for him and they walked toward Nat's designated SHIELD vehicle.

But Clint was not calling Fury, or even the newly resurrected Phil Coulson, although he probably should. No he was calling Tony Stark because only he would have the balls to help them with what he wanted for his little Cutey.

Two years later

Clint would deny that he ever thought about Tema. He would deny he ever missed her until his last breath but…he couldn't deny that he did go to her grave on the anniversary of her death every year. This was the fourth time he had been here. The first was at the small service that Tony had put together and paid for just for her. Clint and Nat had to tell him the entire story and get Clint's mission camera that had playing(he had forgotten about it) from Fury so that he could watch the scene at the airport but he had done it because he cared. All of the Avengers had come but no one could know her like him or Natasha. They tried to understand but they had no idea.

The second time was a few days later to say his good bye that she hadn't gotten to hear before that. He didn't wanna say it at the funeral because it felt wrong to say it in front of other people.

The third time was the first year anniversary.

And this was the fourth time. The second year anniversary. He wished he could come here more often but someone might get wise and come here too. This was reserved for himself and Nat (because he knew she would come later, after him, although she denied it heavily).

As he stared at her head stone he wondered what her life could've been like if she wasn't just a copy of Nat but her sister maybe, or a cousin, or even…maybe a daughter? She had enough differences in her it could've been possible, but in reality she was just…an experiment. Maybe that was why he still came here. He was still trying to convince her she was something more.

He knew she was. From the passionate way she talked and the opinions she had, she had to have been more than an experiment. Sure every memory she had before she left the Red Room was Natasha's but she had her own as well. She had her own experiences, she had her own thoughts, she had her own feelings, and she had her own life.

But living with someone else's nightmares…that would be hellacious indeed and he figured if he had been in that position, well maybe death would sound more appealing.

Regardless he knew the difference between an experiment and a person. That's why her head stone read…

_Tema Odin Dva-Tri Barton Romanoff…_

_…Because she was more than just Test Subject 123_

_Died August 17 2014_

_We'll remember you always._

Yes he added their last names to hers because it made her sound human. It made her sound just like them, and in so many ways she had been. She was now Tema Odin Dva-Tri Barton Romanoff because she was much more than _just_ Test Subject 123.

FIN

* * *

There you have it. She is more but humanity is less. Leave a review if you feel so inclined and make it harsh if necessary. I know it's bad and I can take it.

~MiniCinnamon99


End file.
